The Hidden Enemy

Following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the people of the United States were traumatized. There was widespread disbelief that such devastation could occur on American soil, and in a manner similar to the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, America looked for somebody to blame. The Bush administration, eager to “finish the job” of deposing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein – a job which had been started in 1991 by the previous Bush administration – manufactured and distorted evidence to support its claims that the Hussein regime had close ties to Al Qaeda, that it had weapons of mass destruction, and that by eliminating Saddam, the United States would be able to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East (Brewer, 243-244). In March of 2003, then-President George W. Bush ordered U.S. troops into Iraq in order to effect the so-called “regime change” – a sanitized term for military overthrow of a government – which he and his advisers sought.

From the very beginning, the conflict did not go as planned. U.S. troops never located the weapons of mass destruction supposedly possessed by the Hussein regime – hardly surprising, given that United Nations inspectors never located any such weapons. The Iraqi people, far from welcoming the Americans as liberators, were at best largely apathetic about the end of Saddam Hussein. The U.S.-led coalition failed to establish a government that was both stable and friendly to Western interests in the ensuing power vacuum, and Iraq quickly descended into civil strife, often along ethnic and religious lines (Brewer, 264-265). In addition, while seeking to establish a nominally democratic government in Iraq, the United States continued to support authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the region, in states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and Pakistan (Brewer, 271). As a result, charges of hypocrisy leveled against the U.S. government were not unjustified. In retrospect, the United States seems to have gone into the war in Iraq not with the goal of making itself and the world a safer place, but instead in order to expand its own influence in the region – a policy reminiscent of European colonialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This cover from Time, which appeared in December 2003, depicts an individual clad in a head scarf, holding an RPG. The captions read “Exclusive: The Hidden Enemy” and “Behind the lines with the INSURGENTS sowing terror in IRAQ.” By hiding the person’s face, the photographer and the magazine are attempting to dehumanize the people who would fit into the category represented here, thereby making it easier for the U.S. government to market the conflict in Iraq to the American people. In addition, by having the person here hold a weapon, the photographer seems to be hoping to make the audience “back home” in the United States uncomfortable. It is also worth noting that the word “INSURGENTS” has been rendered in all capital letters and in red, in contrast to the black of each other word in that caption. These make it stand out quite emphatically, drawing the eye to it and associating it with the red patterns on the person’s head scarf. This in turn creates a more general association between head scarves and the concept of insurgency – and by extension, terrorism.

Sources:

Brewer, Susan A. Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.